Cat Person: The Book Review
I did a pretty deep dive on Kristen Roupenian’s journey (what we know of it) but what was pointed out is that I never talked about the other writing she’s done. Still, my big questions remain: is the novel she agreed to do coming, and has she quit writing all together? But let’s take a look at what she does have: a good book of short stories. Cat Person & Other Stories was originally titled You Know You Want This.
TLDR: It’s a good book. Not great, but better than I would expect for a first book of fiction. It’s better than my first book. So let’s give Kristen a W.
The book reads as you would expect from someone who was a double major in English and psychology. Roupenian shows us few characters, but really gets deep inside their heads, more so than the usual MFA fiction fare. Her narratives are usually internal—there’s not a lot of dialogue. It’s as if her characters are her therapy patients, but there’s also another side of it: she seems to resent them. Of course, I can’t say for sure if this is the case, but I got a feeling in the subtext that she has no favorite character. This is unusual.
Roman à clef is a way of writing fiction that is very close to real events, with some names changed. Initially, the characters were based on famous people: politicians, high society types, and celebrities. Over time, it became a method of writing about one’s own life: think Kerouac’s works, in which you can figure out who is supposed to be whom from his circle, or Bukowski’s Hank Chinaski alter ego. This is the common approach for new writers.
New writers tend to write about themselves and incidents that really happened to them. Go into any freshman creative writing workshop, and you’ll see mostly stories about college students who have gone through a breakup or have parents who just don’t understand. Nothing wrong with this—it’s an easy way to get started typing out the pages. But one of the giveaways is that the main character is the victim, the blameless one, the misunderstood genius; they did everything right, and the world is against them or their friends fucked them over.
Even when you get over this as a writer, there’s still a tendency to be too nice to your protagonist. They get what they want. Conflicts resolve in their favor. Justice prevails. And they’re the only ones who see the world or the situation for what it is. If only people would listen to them! It’s really difficult when you know what the protagonist should do, and still have to write them doing the wrong thing, because that’s the story. I could write pages just about the choices your characters make, but it’s beside my point I’m trying to get back to: Roupenian does not have this issue.
Roupenian doesn’t have a favorite character as far as I can tell. Everyone in her book is at least a little shitty, and there are some who are not bad people, but really bring the bad drama to their own lives through their poor choices. Think about the great protagonists of American literature—even the losers seem lovable—you can imagine that the author is rooting for them to succeed. Roupenian’s tendency to play no favorites is notable.
“Bad Boy” opens the book, and rightly so. The quickest assumption anyone can make is that “Cat Person” is her best story, since it’s the one that got all the attention. By putting this first, the editor has taken a stand and said “this is who Kristen Roupenian really is, and this is what she can do.” I think it’s her best story. It starts off pretty normal, and then just goes somewhere I didn’t expect. There’s sex & power, which if there is a prevailing kink to her work, this is what it is: not the standard 50 Shades style kink, but a deeper psychological vein that is tapped. Not “standard” S/M or B&D, but a sexual powerplay for sure.
“Look at Your Game, Girl” has an odd technique that I loved—a series of epilogues. I don’t want to get too far in the story itself other than to say Roupenian creates tension almost immediately, and after that first story, I thought, “maybe she will go where I’m afraid she will”—so congrats for creeping me out. Usually short stories are a brief time in the characters’ lives—a bus ride, an afternoon, a week maybe—but this one ends with three epilogues over many years of the main character, telling us how the incident of the story affected her. Overall, the story keeps in line with the first, in the way that Roupenian is not afraid to make the choices that other writers would not.
Then comes “Sardines.” A story that seems much more suburban than the others at first. And again, Roupenian goes somewhere I didn’t predict. Like a much different place. Sorry to be vague, but I really can’t describe it without spoilers—not even the nature of the surprise. At this point, I gave up trying to predict how her stories would resolve. If I want to know what happens next, can’t guess what will, but be more satisfied with what I am given than what I erroneously predicted, I think it’s good art.
So now I’m a fan. Here’s four stories (including “Cat Person” that comes later in the book) out of four that I liked. Now, I don’t think they were all this good. But especially for a new writer, I’m going to judge her on the strength of her best work and hope that going forward, we see even better work. I think these stories are the best four stories in the collection. Had she more time to write outside the spotlight, I have no doubts she could write more of equal quality.
And maybe it’s just personal preference—there are two stories that are fantastical, fairy taleish that I didn’t like as much as others, but seem to have been part of the same effort to create a classic horror in the sense of the old Grimm’s Fairy Tales or Hans Christian Andersen. There’s another, “Biter” that I didn’t care for. Again, I can’t say objectively that they’re any better or worse.
But I imagine she had a deadline, and the marketing department on her to turn in a book to capitalize on the virality of “Cat Person” ASAP. Time was of the essence.If the reception she received from the literary world hasn’t soured her on the whole process, I’m sure we’ll see a great book from her in time. And time is what she needs.